The aim of this study was to determine the evolutionary time line for rust fungi and date key speciation events using a molecular clock. Evidence is provided that supports a contemporary view for a recent origin of rust fungi, with a common ancestor on a flowering plant. Divergence times for > 20 genera of rust fungi were studied with Bayesian evolutionary analyses. A relaxed molecular clock was applied to ribosomal and mitochondrial genes, calibrated against estimated divergence times for the hosts of rust fungi, such as Acacia (Fabaceae), angiosperms and the cupressophytes. Results showed that rust fungi shared a most recent common ancestor with a mean age between 113 and 115 million yr. This dates rust fungi to the Cretaceous period, which is much younger than previous estimations. Host jumps, whether taxonomically large or between host genera in the same family, most probably shaped the diversity of rust genera. Likewise, species diversified by host shifts (through coevolution) or via subsequent host jumps. This is in contrast to strict coevolution with their hosts. Puccinia psidii was recovered in Sphaerophragmiaceae, a family distinct from Raveneliaceae, which were regarded as confamilial in previous studies.

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 16. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 March 2016.

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#912,519

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#887

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#24,980

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Outputs of similar age from New Phytologist

#22

of 121 outputs

Altmetric has tracked 12,770,329 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 92nd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.

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